Search

I know, it does sound like a silly question but bear with me for a moment. From what I have learned, death indexes are pretty much useless if you don’t look at the original record but there’s always other ways of verifying information from the indexes. So here’s my little mystery:

Frank Albert Volz was born 8 August, 1885 in Genesee County, New York. His father was a real estate man (a very busy one), Albert Joseph Volz (1853-1937) from New York to Kansas and finally Oklahoma, with the “1889ers” who made the first land run. Frank (or Frank A) followed his father and the rest of his family there.

He founded his first company “Volz & Horigan Undertaking” with his half-brother, Lawrence Timmons Volz, in 1911, then quickly moving on to clerk positions in labor unions in Oklahoma City and accounting in oil corporations.

In 1920-1921, he went to San Francisco, presumably as a clerk again. I had found him in the city directories and there was an article in 1921 (Daily News, Batavia, New York. Tuesday Evening, July 12, 1921, p.4. Source: fultonhistory.com) that mentioned him being in California.

He didn’t go to San Francisco for nothing, he met this lovely young lady : Katherine Louise Mcgurk (1891-1981). Now Louise (she wore this name in records for most of her life) was a secretary by trade, and she liked to travel a lot. I didn’t quite know how she got from Malden, MA (her place of birth) to San Francisco and THEN to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the house of Frank Volz. I started backtracking my research and found a record of her in the Simmons College Review (Boston) that told of her departure for California.

Then I found her also in San Francisco directories, with her mother Alexina Louise Genereux (1861-1941) living at the same address as Frank Volz in 1923! So this was definitely love: Frank Volz and Louise McGurk got married on the 25th of September 1929, in San Francisco. They left the Golden State and went to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma where I found records of them for 1930 and 1940 in US Censuses.

Thanks to Ancestry.com hint features (when you have a paid subscription), I managed to track them both down again in 1956. They were living in Laguna Beach, Orange County, California (source: California Voter Registration 1900-1968). Now according to the California Death Index (I have double-checked on every site that hosts the database): Frank A Volz died April 6, 1961 in Orange County. His mother’s maiden name is Bissell, which concurs with my data. His wife, Louise M Volz died herself in January 1981, Long Beach. She is buried in the Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, in Orange County. Her maiden and parent’s name (Genereux & McGurk) also concur with my data.

Since I had only the death index to rely on for Frank and Louise, I cross-referenced the Social Security Numbers I discovered in the records. First, I had to eliminate a result for Louise; on some databases the SSN for her is that of her husband. I have tracked down hers (using reverse search engines) and using Steve’s Morse Five-Digit Decoder, I now knew that her SSN (565-26-****) was issued in California from 1936-1950.

Then there’s a Social Security Number attached to Frank Volz, it begins with 443-03-****. Still using the decoder, I found that it was issued in Oklahoma from 1936-1950. I tried reverse search on this number but I came up with no results, zip, nada, nothing… Most the time using SSDI or SSN search, it provides me with proof of my initial information: what I don’t understand is how can one database, in this instance the California Death index, give me a SSN that’s seems to be false?! I tried wildcards, switching Frank’s name and surname around, even his birth date and I still have no result for him. Online obituary search has yielded no results as well.

So, what’s your take on this? Can a Death Index database be wrong? Can a SSN be “reused” (if somebody died some time ago)? Do you have any tips or tricks that I have missed?

Well, it’s been a long while since I have posted on this blog, for the past year I have been incredibly busy at work, I also moved from Switzerland to the beautiful Savoie region of France. Since this time, I have conducted a lot of genealogical research for friends and family but I have yet to put down in words everything about my family!

So to get back on track, I’ve decided to use a little story I found doing some research in digitised newspapers on genealogybank.com

I was actually researching information about Peter Elwell Cook, a son of Jerry Cook, a sailor in Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts. Now, the reason I was interested in this individual is because he was married to Sarah Marguerite Mcgurk, in Gloucester around 1925, herself a grand-daughter of Paul Genereux, my second, great-granduncle, a line I’m actively researching in Boston. So, I know from sources that Peter Elwell Cook died on May 1st 1940 in Gloucester… but I have yet to find his obituary! So this morning I decided to track down issues of the Boston Herald for the beginning of the month of May 1940 in the hopes of finding his obituary. I have scoured each obituary page of the Boston Herald (the database maintained by genealogybank could really use a browsing tool… but that’s another story) and I have NOT found his obituary. He is one of my main “brickwalls”, trying to track down the descendants of Paul Genereux. However I have found this story :

“Mr. Eusebe Bedard, retired carpenter […] leaves 124 descendants”

Source: Boston Herald, May 3 1940, p. 1939

Now that’s a lot of family! I wonder how many of his 124 descendants now actively research this prolific individual, forty-five great grandchildren today would mean more than double their descendants! So if you’re interested in the Bedard family in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, go ahead, give it a try!

Now back to my research and back to drafting several posts, Mr. Genereux, the saloon owner in Boston is coming up!